To Tell a Soul
by Lavenderpaw
Summary: Ten years ago James P. Sullivan risked everything to save a little girl named "Boo"; ten years later, she'll have to do the same for him. THE END! At long freaking last... XD
1. Darcel's bad day

****

I.

The teenager looked from behind her black bangs sweeping over the opposite side of her face, all eyes weren't so much on this newcomer as they were on the girl sizing her up like a deadly hawk from the center of the baseball field. Darcel Lain Mitchell held the bat over her head and tried not to watch as the umpire gave the pitcher signals. Overhead the sun was beating hot in the mid-summer sky and the glare was making it hard for her to focus.

"Ready, Mitchell?" One of the other girls called out from left field.

When Darcel turned her head the ball whizzed straight at her. Yipping, she ducked just as it flew over her. The girl flushed bright red as laughter started to rise from all sides of the diamond, but she adjusted her hat so that the brim was fully back and geared for the next swing. Angelina called out if she wanted to stop and Darcel's response was to bend down in a crouch. Mercilessly, the redhead nodded at the umpire and hurled a tight curve ball at her. Darcel gave a shriek before running out towards the left side of the pitcher's mound.

"Darcy!" Her friend - a round girl with brown hair - yelled in exasperation.

Panting, the thirteen-year-old dragged legs to a stop and fell to her knees.

She took the next few seconds to gather her breath as some hushed talk went on.

"Hey, Darc." Angelina came up to her, trying but failing to sound sincere. "The girls and I just talked, and we think it would be best if you left." Darcel switched her eyes on her and stood. "Face it, Darsmell, you suck. Why don't you go back to whatever you did before."

"I wanna do softball." the girl said evenly, going back to pick up her bat and carry it to the base. But she found that when she tried for her third bat that the girls weren't responding.

"Didn't you hear us?" Angelina now spoke loudly and scathingly. "We don't _want _you on our team. You suck, we don't." she stomped forward, grabbed the bat from the tense girl and held the round end out under Darcel's nose. "The hat, Mitchell." Darcel didn't move.

Her brown eyes were set in defiance.

"The _hat_."

Slowly, Darcel removed her customized pink cap that read Cheaters n' Cheetahs in purple.

"Fine," she mumbled, slapping the accessory on the bat. "Softball sucks anyway."

"Darc." The friend whose name she had forgotten jogged up to her. "It's not your fault."

"Then why won't you guys let me play?"

"Well… because, you just need to go back to what you were good at before."

'But your school doesn't have a track team.'

Darcel's thoughts shifted as she looked up in the bleachers, parents watched their young softball players practicing before they would go out to greet them, board them up in their cars and take them out for McDonalds or Pizza hut. "Never mined." Darcel walked away.

Her new house had a room waiting to be unpacked.

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	2. The history of a father

****

I.

The afternoon sun hovered over the tall Jersey trees, which poured right into Darcel's eyes now that she no longer had her cap. It was still unbelievable that a group of older girls had approached a new student out of nowhere and been so friendly to her, only to shun her not even two days into practice. Darcel rubbed at her agitated eyes as the clean-cut suburbs of Parkers View opened up. Identical houses marked the long sprawl of her surroundings as her own one-story, white and green shuttered home appeared, enormous and foreboding.

"Well," Darcel brushed her bangs behind her left ear. "Home dumb home."

A low roll of wheels on the other side of the street caught her attention.

Teen Josh Becker and some of his preteen friends coasted along the street and sidewalk to the boy's house at the end of the block. Freezing up, Darcel switched her eyes over on the trash can at the end of her home's drive way; a rectangle of black poked out under the lid.

"Hey, kid!" One of the neighborhood boys called out.

She didn't move but then noticed that they were calling out to an even younger boy riding his bike nearing the four-lane intersection. Darcel pulled her small white purse up against her back, along with her backpack, and started up the expanse of cement to her house. In a flash of miscalculation, she wound up waving over at Josh when he barely looked at her.

As she did, an assortment of purse contents spilled out over the driveway.

The boys' eyes widened as a small plastic-wrapped girl amenity fell at her feet.

"Oooo."

Darcel smiled nervously and began to pick everything up, her eyes stayed on Josh.

"Come on, man. We've got wood to shred." An eleven-or-twelve-year-old boy reminded his friend. The other two agreed and prodded the seventh grade boy to accompany them.

The girl gasped as her bangs fell back over her eyes.

Josh smiled halfheartedly, gave a mock wave and turned on his heel to follow his friends.

Darcel was left to pick herself and her dirty white jean-shorts off the driveway. The empty carport had a splotch of stained oil in the middle and cobwebs draping the wasp-inhabited corners served as reminders that this house had been used by many a renter before Darcel and her mother. Inside boxes were stacked against the faded wall paper and the recliner of when Darcel had been a toddler was well-worn and sitting in the center of the shag-rugged floor. A flash of red light on the ancient voice recorder left the girl hopeful as she jumped up on the tiled counter and pushed the small gray button. Her legs swung in anticipation.

"Hey, doll." Danita Lain Iverson's beauty shop voice came over the recorder. "Out with Frank, hon. Hah! Can you believe it Darcy? Frank _and _Danny Iverson. If you were smart you'd change your name too so we could be a family, kid. A real one. Ah, well. Love ya

loads. We had some takeout and it's in the fridge if you want it. Be out late, bye babe!"

__

Beep…

"We need cell phones." Darcel murmured to herself.

The barely teenaged girl proceeded to throw her legs over the bar-like counter and head down the hall. Pictures of her mother's family were hung on rusted nails just as they had always been whenever they moved, these people were several generations old and most of whom Danita only spoke of but didn't even herself know. Her own mother and father had a place of honor beside hers and Frank's master bedroom which was about one foot askew from Darcel's own room. Posters of RobPat and KStew and one of Justin Bieber had been tacked about her faux wooden room, along with her flea market and garage sell furniture.

A child-sized bed with a chipping white headboard was what Darcel flopped back on.

Above her head the immobile brown fan was motionless and the dust stayed stationary.

"Hmm." Looking around with a sneaky smile, the girl flung herself under her bed to grab up a photo album she had been given long ago. Speeding through the floppy see-through pages, Darcel found herself stopping at a picture of herself and a man in his early thirties as they beamed at a camera poised down on them and a white cake with rainbow lettering:

__

Happy Third Birthday Darcy!

In pen the words: Kenny J. Mitchell were scrawled under the brown-haired man. Darcel Lain Mitchell had her name under the pig-tailed version of herself in careful black handwriting.

Of course, her mother had always insisted that Darcel forget about the man.

" 'You wouldn't have liked him, doll. The man was in and out of prison from day one.' "

One. Two. Three… A piece of wood that Darcel had found grasped in her tiny hand the day after her father had left her was now taped under the enlarged photograph. "Hi Kenny."

If Darcel ever had the chance, she would give Kenny the piece of wood back. Her mother had been perplexed about where she had gotten it from. It was true that Kenneth Mitchell was good with his hands and had dabbled in woodwork as a teenager but his 'true' calling had always been a more sinister one. As such, Danita never brought up the 'Kenny thing'.

"Kenny…"

Darcel could even remember what he used to call her: Poo.

That was her father, Kenny J. Mitchell. He was her Kenny and she was his Poo.

"Daddy." She fingered the sliver of vanilla-colored wood.

Yes, if the girl had a way to see her father and save him from prison, she would.

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	3. Boo Who?

****

I.

"Just me…"

Darcel sat on the white and pink floral daybed beside her window, watching as the sun was finally disappearing behind her house in a deep red that petered away from the dark blue of twilight. She unlatched the old seal and threw the heavy metal frame up to let in the cool air as she pranced around in her sweaty clothes, her small feet twirling around.

"Just me… living so comfortably. Oh, just me and nobody to tell me no…" the girl tried to pirouette on the old wood floor. "No Mom and no Frank. Just me… oh God please," Darcel fell to the ground with a thud, sighing gently, "Oh please. Just me," she whispered now.

"Bravo. Bravo." A strange man spoke, Darcel turned as he clapped sarcastically.

"I… I…" What appeared to be a lime green Cyclops appraised her interestedly.

"Should I get tickets for the next show or is this a one-time performance?"

She screamed. The monster put his hands up and talked to her in a dismissive voice. But when the first object was thrown the monster clearly got the message and scrambled to get to higher ground, Darcel scanned the room and came across the ball bat lying by her bags.

"Now, now, now look. You've gotta remember me!" He tried reasoning.

The girl stood posed with the bat in front of her, shaking. "Who are you?"

"Kid! You're joking? Tell me you're-," the end of the bat prodded him in the chest.

"I'm not joking."

"Kid, sport… It's me! Mike, remember?"

Darcel eyed him with her head turned suspiciously. "I don't know…" she eased off a bit.

"Wow," 'Mike' laughed nervously, backing up. "You really don't remember me, do you?"

She faced him fully and lowered her bat. "What do you want?"

"Ah, boy, where ta start. Okay," the monster began, pacing around as he explained, "You are the only one I can turn to because the city where I come from has been taken over by a dictator named Randall who returned to Monstropolis - my city, you know," he added to a bewildered Darcel, "So, anyway, me and the love of my life Cecilia have been hiding out in

a sort of make-shift underground cover and my friend entrusted me with your door almost ten years ago before he went to a high-security prison for visiting you one final time. Sully is his name, for the record. Now Randall's got a hideous though elaborate plan to steal all human moms who are expecting kids so that they can be trained from birth to be nothing but

scared so my world will have an everlasting power supply but now it's in shambles, and-,"

He froze up with his eyes wide on Darcel, who was equally mortified.

"I came to you," Mike fought to not become emotional, "Because you're my only link to this world. And, and Sully's." he clenched his fingers. "The fact is, monsters need moms."

The girl inclined her head, saying dryly. "You need your mommy?"

"No! Boo." She dropped her bat at that and scrambled across the floor on her rearend.

"What?" Darcel's mouth went agape. "What did you call me?"

Mike approached her as shadows fell and night permeated all light.

"Boo. Okay. That's what Sully called you."

"No," She shook her head in the dark. "_Poo_ is what my father Kenny called me."

" 'Poo?' " the monster laughed. "You mean _Kitty, _kid."

Darcel decided fast then. "You need to get out," she pushed him towards the window, his skin was as thick as the apple it looked like. "Mom'll be home soon, and if she sees you…"

"My point exactly!" He clutched at her wrists to try and force her back. "Listen Boo, if my world goes through with it's plan than _you're_ Mom is first on the list. Randall managed to abduct you once." his finger was in her face and she swiped it aside at the word 'abduct'.

Mike let his arms fall to his sides, breathing hard. "And he'll do it again." he admitted.

A moment passed. "You need to go."

"Bu-,"

"Now." She ordered.

"Doll face?" Her mother knocked on her door.

"Mom." Darcel's face fell.

"Yeah, see." Mike gestured in the shadows. "Your Mom's a prime target, Randall's-,"

"Quick hide!" Her brown eyes grew frenzied in worry as she tried seeing him.

"No, better yet, I think I'll hop out the door and return to the _one _working door in…"

Darcel shoved him and her oval rug under the bed, stuffing him in as the door to her room opened and the light switch flicked on. Her mother, rounded in tight curves, waited there.

"Is there a reason you're making a ruckus in here?"

'Is there a reason you're dating a twenty-four-year old wannabe father?' "No." She said.

"All right, Darcel, you want some chicken dumplings? Frank's cooking."

" 'Darcel?' " A voice repeated from under her bed.

The girl shot the voice a look. "Uh, no Mom. I don't think I'm all that hungry right now."

"All right, baby doll." the forty-three-year-old woman smiled tentatively. "Love you."

"Love you too."

She closed the door but kept it slightly ajar.

"OK." Mike snuck around the bed post. "Now we can really talk."

"Don't." A hockey stick appeared under his nonexistent nose. "Make me use this."

"Hey, kid. I'll have you know that… wah!" The stick came down hard and batted Mike right out the window so what he tumbled across the shaggy lawn. "I. Was. On. Ice. An. Hockey-,"

The monster hit the garbage can with enough force so that it toppled down on him. When Darcel saw the helmet and skate board fall out, she quickly shoved the window down and locked it into place before yanking on the blinds and skirting the musty orange curtains on the oversized metal hanger closed. Unsettled, the girl plunged onto her bed and buried her face in her Shrek pillow. Mike? Sully? Boo? Her pillow case felt wet to the touch. Kitty? Kitty.

"My father." Mike had it wrong, Kitty was Kenny and this Randall had him imprisoned.

Darcel pulled the pillow closer against her chest, feeling her heart quicken at the pet name.

Kitty. _That_ was what she had called him.

The girl dried her eyes off and fell into a restless sleep.

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	4. On into Monstropolis: Pt 1 of 2

****

I.

Mike paced along the sidewalk outside of Boo's house, muttering to himself how all of this was for nothing. The girl had no memory of what she had endured years before and expecting that she would be able to help him was completely ridiculous. If only she had been old enough to realize the damage her short time in the monster world had caused, then maybe Boo would have been more willing to help. But as it were, Randall's theory that laughter could not fuel their city forever had come to pass and they had all agreed.

Well, except for him and a few others.

"Word's popping up even where there's little to zero technology," Mike grumbled as his shadow was cast and moving to and fro by the streetlight. "Everyone's gonna want their own human now that almost everyone knows that they aren't-," a rustling noise sounded.

The little green monster jumped back in surprise. So it was already too late, the door that Mike had hidden had been discovered where it was still locked up tight in Boo's room. It was his only way home and now Boo was trapped. Biting down frantically on his yellow finger nails, Mike hesitated only a moment before speeding at the dark green door of the suburban home and charging through it, leaving a big, holed silhouette of himself behind.

"Boo! I mean, Darla…"

He ran through the silent house towards her bedroom at the far end.

"I mean, Dana. Uh, Darlene - lyn, er…?"

Her door stood open while Mike leapt from the shag rug and slid across the paneled floor.

Everything was just as it had been when he had left.

"Donna?" Mike looked around the gloomy room.

There was no one in sight.

"Denise?"

The dim light from the street didn't even reach the girl's window, only blue night did.

"Dolly?

Something hooked the monster around the ankles and pulled him towards the bed, he tried to shriek and call for help but no matter how hard Mike fought the creature was proving to be a lot stronger than himself. "No! No please, help, I want my honey! I want my Celia!"

"Shh!"

"I thought _I _was a monster! But, oh, my fiancée! My baby-kins! My smoospy-,"

"Shush!" A hand clamped his large mouth closed and yanked him completely under.

"I'm fine." Boo whispered to him, her brown eyes rational and non-reassuring in the dark.

Mike pushed her arms back. "You remember?"

"Well," She fished around underneath the bed and pulled out a photo album, "It's kind of hard to deny what you're saying when I was able to find this." the girl held up a drawing.

"Uh… I give up, what is it?"

"Randall." Boo clicked a steel-gray flashlight on and reviewed it for him. "The monster who apparently abducted me as a child. He's got my father… and now my stepfather."

"Oh, your stepfather! Eh, your what?"

She smiled mischievously, helping the monster up from under her bed. "Mom went to the hospital tonight because she was having constrict… trappings. Something. Anyway, your friends in Monster World must not be too bright because they kidnapped Frank instead."

"Your step dad?"

"Yeah," Boo said, looking saddened, "Now that monster has two people from my life."

"Well," Mike gave her hand a squeeze, "We can change that, Dory."

"Darcel."

"Right."

"So how do we do it?" She walked over and switched a tall brass lamp on, growing more excited. "How will we save them? Is it like Digimon? I used to watch that show every day as a little kid. Or, or like Pokemon? Is there some cell phone Digi device? Oh! Better yet," Darcel jumped up and down in her pink night clothes. "I can call you Mikemon and we-,"

"We go through this door I hid behind your clothes wrack for safe keeping and we try and save Kitty… or, uh Kenny." He started to rummage through her drawers. "Pack lightly, let

your friends know you're going on a small holiday, call'em if you have to. Only essentials."

Darcel grabbed his head and pulled him up to her face. "I've got a better idea," she said.

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	5. On into Monstropolis: Pt 2 of 2

****

I.

"Um… what are you doing again?"

"You said it's cold where they're holding my father," Darcel explained as she gathered an assortment of 'weaponry' together. From duck taping her flashlight to her baseball bat to doing the same with an ice skate and a hockey stick, "My dad was an ice hockey player."

"Oh." Mike rubbed at his head in the lit room.

"Well, an aspiring one." She said as she pulled out a backpack. "Now come on."

The green monster trailed her into the box-stacked kitchen as she opened the refrigerator and started emptying plastic wrapped sandwiches and soda cans in. A few apples, a small bag of unopened carrots and a canister of Pringles later, he was starting to get a bit antsy.

"You okay?" Darcel looked over at him as she zipped her bag closed.

"Well, it's just that… you know, it's been nearly twenty-four hours since I left, and-,"

The girl laughed as she took an old tuna sandwich her mother hadn't eaten and offered it to him. "Mom says with Frank around we'll never have to cook again. Don't know why he ever bothered to go to culinary school," she concentrated on the old chipping tiled floor.

"We'll get your step dad back, kid." Mike offered, swallowing his food in one bite.

"Oh, I don't care about him." Darcel met his brown eye. "All the crap my mother's dated has never amounted to much of a father figure," she sighed and flung the bag over her left shoulder. "What's my dad like?" She grew more excited, asking. "Have you met him, Mike?"

"Uh… yeah, sure! You know, kid, your dad was a, um… monster hunter!"

"A monster hunter!.?" Her mouth and eyes enlarged.

"_Sure_." Mike went on to elaborate. "And, and just between you and me kid, I acted as a personal sidekick for your father." the words flowed like a river. Kenny Mitchell had been known Monster Worldwide as the champion and hero to all good monsters. In fact, Mike had at points been called a close or even best friend of Kenny's. And now, it was to fall on Darcel and only Darcel to liberate her father from the evil Randall. "So, here I am now Boo."

"But what if he comes back for my mother?"

"Well, that's why we gotta go there now and save your dad now, so he can resume, uh…"

"Monster hunting?"

"Yes! Yes… but, uh, only the bad ones."

Darcel studied him a moment. "Are you sure?"

"Hey, hey, come on Boo. Would I lie to you?"

She still appeared unconvinced.

"Would Kenny," He reached up and gently pulled on the string around her neck to reveal the small piece of wood, "lie to you? You just so happen to have the sole existing door, er, portal to my world. And if you just-," the sound of a door hitting the side of a house came.

"Quick!" Darcel gathered her supplies and ran for the carport.

"Uh, uh, Boo, sweetie. Can you wait a sec?" Mike scrambled to give chase after her.

The teenager ran out in front of the house to confront the two kids she had made terrible impressions with that evening. Angelina and Josh stood recapping their experiences with each other. At the words "My mom's gone!" both acquitances exchanged knowing looks. Acting fast, Darcel went to look at her trash can and started rummaging through it for her skateboard and helmet; when she looked up both of the kids were standing over the girl.

"Mitchell?"

"Darcy, do you know what's going on?"

"In short," Mike came out from behind them.

"Ah!" Angelina screamed, running to take cover behind the boy.

"Your mothers have been kidnapped into a monster world to bear children who will be trained for scare ready fuel. Of course, your moms' will have to be carrying these kids."

"Trained?" Darcel looked at him in distress. "You mean, raised right?"

"No, kid. Trained."

She turned to the other children pleadingly. "Your moms' are expecting, aren't they?"

The two were dead silent.

"You've gotta help us. There's a door portal in my room behind my coat wrack, and-,"

Angelina took off screaming into the night with Josh running after her and calling out.

"Well, that was nuts."

"Come on." Darcel gripped his hand and ran back for her room with her stuff underarm.

…

Mike helped Darcel pull out an assortment of winter clothing. The green monster started to halfheartedly try on some summer wear as the girl dressed in a red, yellow striped parka with huge buttons. He finally got bored and watched her wrap a scarf around her neck, put on some thick gloves and lace up some black army boots, which the girl of course needed.

It was only apparent that she was going too far when she got out a little toddler-size parka and was holding it up under his chin. "Boo," he said plainly. "I'm not wearing this."

"Than you'll freeze." She insisted, sliding the sleeves on, "And don't call me that."

"Okay, _Darcel,_" He yanked the black puffy thing on and zipped it up, sighing but also for the sake of moving things forward, allowing the girl to put a pair of earmuffs on him. Mike swiped the boots she tried to fit on him herself. "The door we'll arrive at is underground."

"Still," Darcel placed a pair of earmuffs and goggles on before snapping on her red helmet. "We're better safe then sorry…" she grinned down at him. "Even for us monster hunters."

Mike started catching on. "You remember, Boo?"

The girl smiled tentatively as she gathered her things. "I remember my father."

"But what about everything else, Darcy? You've affected a lot of lives."

"Than I guess it's time to face the world I've affected."

They headed for her room and for the so-called last remaining door to Monstropolis.

To be continued...

~ Lavenderpaw ~

****

A/N:

FTR, Darcel doesn't believe half of what Mike's saying to her. But she does truly believe that Sully is her human 'father' trapped in the Monster world and that he 'may' be a monster hunter. I wonder how the two will meet again. Heck, even I don't know that! 


	6. In the clink but on the brink

**I.**

Night was a solemn affair as stars twinkled in the quiet sky. An enormous cement-block barricade stood in the center of a wide range of smoggy gray mountains. Their shadowy tops were so thick that the snow that existed there looked almost nonexistent. From his barred window view on the front side of the prison, a lone, blue and purple furred inmate observed the lovely but lonely night. He sighed, moving his clawed finger along a bar in the window that not even _he _could break when he heard what sounded like whispering:

"Pst, Sully. _Sul-ly…_" the voice grew more impatient. "Sully!"

The monster laughed. "Yeah, Mark?"

"Think you could help a guy out and give me some of your leftover gruel?"

"Didn't the guard give you enough to get by yesterday?"

"Ah, screw it," Mark placed his scaly back to the bars above, "We're just rotting anyway."

"Now don't say that." Sully turned in his cramped jail ceil, his blue eyes gleamed up at his friend's saddened ones, "I've been here nearly nine years. It isn't over until it's over."

"Or until you're dead." Joe said from the ceil adjacent to Mark's.

The two shared a laugh before ending up sighing.

"Now come on, you guys," Sully reached under his chained cot and pulled his green tool box over beside himself. "I've got an idea. How about a little music? Mark, harmonica."

The tentacle-d creature played a few smooth notes across the rusted piece of silver.

"And, Joe, got your jar of toe nails?" his fellow inmate picked up the jar with his one foot.

The three started playing and was soon joined by a jamboree of improvised music. Sully twirled the bars to his old window around just as he had in high school and joined into the percussion with a drum accompaniment. Their spirits started to rise when a figure moved.

"Hey!" their gray-blue suited guard - a muscle-bound ex-prisoner - hollered down at them.

Everyone dropped their instruments in simultaneous abandonment.

"Wait until Randall hears about-,"

" 'Wait until Randall hears about…' _what_?"

Two gutturally grumbling alligators with nooses around their necks were being led by their eye-squinting master as he rode on their backs toward the appointed guard. He grew very nervous and instantly made space for the monster to glare down at his obstinate prisoners.

"How ya likin' the new order of things?" Randall spoke to the liberated guard.

"Uh, uh they're very nice Randall, sir. I was tried for stealing, but since you-,"

"Good." the salamander monster finished for him. "Now go change Marge and Gumbo's litter boxes, I can smell'em from a mile away. Humph, speaking of deplorable odors," his slit-eyed gaze appraised Sully as the guard led his pets away, "Ya wanna get out, Skulky?"

The monster slid against the bars and faced away from the cemented skywalk.

"You know what you have to do to get out." He surveyed them all. "All of you do. Every single city in our world is waiting for reform, former Monsters Incorporated members, and _I'm _going to give it to them," Randall pointed at himself, his eyes roamed the silent barred windows, "anyone want to join me?" he said; no one answered, "Anyone want freedom?"

There was still no response.

"Well," Randall leaned away from the small cement block guard rail, "Good luck then."

"Uh, uh Randall wait…"

Everyone turned in shock when someone spoke out.

The monster dictator leered down at Joe's barred window.

"Don't do it, Joe." Sully told him between bared teeth, "Don't _do it!_"

"Yes, Joseph?"

"I'd… I'd like freedom."

"Nice." Randall snapped his slippery fingers and a guard at the top of the ceils released the chain holding Joes's ceil. The monster walked away as a resounding _"Thank yooou." _was heard echoing from below. "He'll be useful to help our searchers flush out the rebellion…"

Sully had resumed facing away when the monster looked his way again.

"You have a good résumé with all our previous workers, Sullivan. You could persuade all of them to make a better choice then this." the monster didn't even move an inch where he sat. "Tsk. Tsk. Pity. It's only a matter of time… once those human moms come here, give us what we need, and get dumped in the rest of the prisons to eventually starve off, then it will fall to the rest of you to teach the kids a thing or two about fear. If not, you'll join the rest of the castaway humans." Randall sneered down directly at Sully's ceil before leaving.

A good five or more minutes passed before Mark asked the monster why he still kept faith.

"It's not like Mike ever visited, what makes you so sure he'll come now?"

Sully took a deep breath, "Why?" he released it thoughtfully, taking something from his tool box. "Because he's done it before." He looked over a picture that was signed 'Boo.'

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	7. This time has come: Pt 1 of 2

****

I.

"How long has she been here, googly-bear?"

"Heh, she was blabbering on about something called 'digivolving' all the way through the door, sat down on the floor, tried to have a snack and then fell asleep within ten minutes."

"Yes, but _how long _has she been here?"

Mike looked up at his fiancée and slipped his fingers under her hand, raising up on his toes to peck it devoutly. They looked upon the girl who slept with her backpack resting under her head like a pillow and her parka spread under her on the damp ground. Five hundred feet beneath the surface of the Monstrous Mountains, twenty-five monster refugees from Monstropolis resided just half an hour outside one of the largest prisons in the world: The Reformatory. It had at a time been where the world placed murderers, thieves or human-sympathizers. Once the energy switch had reversed in effectiveness with the new Monsters Inc. top executive violating previous ethnics, the world had been divided into controversy.

"I can't believe it's been almost ten years, Celia, and I can't believe I've come this far."

"If we release Sully in time before Randall's new reform takes off, we might have a chance for him to prove his point about laughter." She stirred him in the direction of Darcel. "But you need to get that piece of wood from her, baby." the two looked at the string that was tucked away in her shirt. "You can't risk sneaking into the Reformatory again, Michael."

"It's the only door besides Boo's!"

Celia tapped him gently on the lips to silence him.

"Shh, the girl." the snake-headed monster pointed out. "You know Randall's too strong."

"The lowlife." Mike muttered angrily. "He managed to have every other door smashed to pieces." he clutched his fists and pumped his arms out. "OK… I'm gonna get that piece."

Celia held her breath as her fiancé tip-toed over to a dark green toolbox, popped open the top and pulled out something that was soft and small. She marveled that he was willing to sacrifice his favorite stuffed animal to get what they needed. The monster crept over to the teenager to try to take the piece of wood under her shirt. Boo went into a ball, mumbling:

"Mm… no. No, Kitty."

Mike's eye widened.

"Go on," Celia urged him.

Licking his lips, Mike slid his bear under her arm and managed to quickly rip the necklace away before Darcel could swipe at him like she had at previous times. The two stood very still as she drew in a deep breath and let their arms fall as she released it peacefully. Mike and Celia looked at one another thoughtfully before shrugging. As his love went to ready their tent for the night, Mike pulled a brown blanket from the identical tool box which he had given to Sully on his birthday - who incidentally had already purchased the exact same one and had given it to Mike as a friendly reminder to consult him in the future about any planned presenting - and draped it over Darcel. She tilted her head and smiled in her sleep.

"Kenny…"

The monster was put off-guard by that name.

"Mom," Boo murmured.

Her reflection against his green eye eventually made him smile as well. Mike walked over to the little light flickering inside his latern and turned it off. There hadn't been much time to buy a new one after Sully was arrested, so he had made due with the one they had used to get back to their world with not even a year after everything had begun. Mike picked it up and made his way back to the tent where he knew Celia was already wearing her laces.

…

The escalator ride by herself up to the main surface was nothing new. Darcel remembered she had taken a plane out to see her Gramps Mitchell up until she was twelve on a minor's flight. Her travelogues had been lonesome experiences, but she had been allowed to drift into her own subconscious. Pictures dedicated to 'Grammy Marcy' had littered her room as a child, and even after her deceased relative had been gone for five years Darcel would still write short stories and sign them 'Marcy'. Now the teen held her breath as the otherwise normal subterranean escalator surmounted the top of the earth and opened up to Darcel.

But of course, nothing about monsters were normal.

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	8. This time has come: Pt 2 of 2

**I.**

"Michael." Someone shook his shoulder.

"Mm… no Celia, don't show me the test just yet."

"Michael!"

"No, I can't be a dad!" He flew up in the spread of sheets he was tangled in.

"Mike Wasozski, do you know where that child has gone too!.?"

The monster looked up to see Celia standing over him with her five-year-old hair curls twisted into her snaky locks. Groggily, he patted around the area to find his alarm clock and saw that it was six-thirty-two, a good full twenty eight minutes before it was suppose to ring and they would map out their plan with what to do with Boo next. Mike reached for his pad of paper with the title: Spring Sully Ideas on it when his fiancée grabbed him.

"Michael, the girl."

"Boo? What about her." he clasped her wrists and gently forced them away.

"She's _gone, _Mike. The refugees and I checked on her this morning and she left."

"Aw, she probably just stepped out for some fresh air. The girl has warm clothes."

Celia moved down to his level, her dark blue eyes were serious. "She left a note."

The monster gave his lover an exasperated look and snatched a sheet of paper from her:

_Mike, _

_Thank you for all your help, but I'm going to _

_rescue my dad by myself to keep the rest of _

_you safe. Don't worry._

_Your friend, _

_Darcel… and maybe, your friend Boo._

Mike felt his jaw drop.

"Don't you see what you've done."

He was speechless.

"You knew more then what you told Darcel and you withheld information from her when she had a right to know from the start. Michael, you've taken advantage of that little girl."

"I didn't _lie_."

"No, but you used her." Celia was on the verge of tears. "And she could get hurt or, or…"

The Cyclops finally found his bearings at her implications.

"Than we better go find her," he said tonelessly.

**II.**

"All right, then." Randall sat upon his high-backed chair - otherwise known as a 'throne' - with his alligators positioned on either side of him. "Let's see what you lugs managed to bring me." he surveyed his cement-blocked inner walls proudly before paying them mind.

As if having no choice, his company did so as well.

"Well!" their leader snarled. "Let's see her!" he relented. "But yes, marvel at my décor."

The two hulking monsters looked at one another, smiled crookedly and placed the large crate down before the monster who had released them from prison six years earlier. After Randall had had to deal with riots in the prison area, make deals and pay dues to them and finally get them to imprison anyone in Monstropolis who didn't agree with his plan, nearly all was calm and orderly. The prisoners got their freedom and he got their free grunt work.

Now two of his favorite thugs stood up straight with their arms at their sides.

"To our savior Randall…" the first one announced.

"…May he be pleased with our first human captive." the other finished.

"All right, all right, all right. Get a move on. That kid from ten years ago is finally going to get what's coming to her for having me dropped in a flithty, disgusting_, lewd stink-hole!_ I- I can't even talk about it…" he propped his chin in his hand. "Well, get on with it people."

The two monsters looked at each other at his outburst.

Sighing with intent revulsion, Randall pushed up off of his armrests, snagged a crow bar from his personal guard and drove it into the box like their wasn't a living person he could impale. Looks of uncertainty crossed the thugs' faces at his unpredictability and they very cautiously moved away while readying themselves to hightail it out of the 'throne room' if necessary. Randall paid them no mind as he popped open the top and gave the crate one sharp kick to spill it's contents out. His eyes widened as all those around him gathered to catch a view. A human male - some shaky-looking young white guy in a stained apron - appeared cowering away from them in a ball on the floor. He flashed his gaze up on them.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!"

With a single whack to the head by the same blunt instrument used to free him, the stranger went out cold. "Humph," Randall gave his head a shake, "Jeffery, see these two lugs out."

"Oh, thank you mister Randall, sir!" the first thug from before thanked him.

"We'd never picture you for someone with such merciful-,"

"And make sure they have sturdy shovels for the rebellion flush out." He remarked plainly.

"But, but sir, we didn't know, it was so dark!"

"Yeah, and it's dangerous underground. There could be cave-ins or dust suffocations."

The bigger monster that was Randall's personal guard showed them out.

"Roz," Randall turned to the slug-monster standby.

"Yes, mister Randall," the white-haired lady drawled out.

"Assemble the RDA." He informed her. "Looks like we're going to have to use the only remaining door in existence to storm the human world if we're ever going to start this."

"Yes, mister Randall." Roz said as she blew on a penny whistle to assemble her workers of the former Child Detective Agency; for she knew better then to try to overturn this tyrant.

**II.**

Darcel Mitchell squinted through the fierce morning blizzard as she trudged across thick snow piled up to her waist. Overhead looked to be one of those things that transported you for skiing. The Reformatory was nearly in sight when the machine whirred to begin moving and she yelped, jumping back in the snow as she did and spilling her 'weapons' out everywhere. Sighing softly, Darcel started to gather everything up when she came across the hockey stick that read _Kenny _on it. But that wasn't what drew her attention.

This Kenny and the one under her 3rd birthday picture were in a different handwriting.

If the girl recalled, her father had signed it. But that wasn't even the biggest shock… this handwriting did not match the small presents that her father had sent her over the years. It had been sloppy, to be sure. This particular handwriting was neat and delicate, the type of handwriting you'd expect from someone who was good with their hands and not someone who spent stints in the slammer for drug possession. The handwriting on the presents from her 'father'- Darcel realized - was Mom's poor penmanship. Her brown eyes stung as she thought of this: Her father Kenny had been imprisoned in this monster world for a decade.

It had never been about human affairs, he had been incarcerated as a monster hunter.

Mike had told her the truth!

"Come on, kid." He told her gently as he tugged on her arm to stand. "Let's go."

"And find my dad?"

"Eh…" the monster looked over his shoulder; no one was there. "Yeah, kid. Definitely."

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	9. Out of the clear, into the obscure

**I.**

"So you're sure that wearing this suit from when I was seven is a good idea?"

"Mike?"

"What? I swiped it from the closet and stuffed it in her bag when she wasn't looking."

Celia and Mike looked the girl from head-to-toe as she stood in a purple dinosaur costume inside of a gondola as they moved along in circulation of hideaways and rebels who were being led to their new 'home'. The green Cyclops looked over unsurely at his fiancée' who turned away from him with a scowl, folding her purple arms across her sweater clad chest.

"Well?"

Boo's question caught his attention.

"Oh," Mike examined her once, "Yeah, kid. You look like a hundred bucks."

"We need to keep you safe," Celia told the girl, turning to Mike, "and _not _in danger."

"Well that's why we're going in together…" Boo said.

"Well," Mike lifted his arms up in a shrug, "Yes and no."

"Michael, please don't tell me that you have another harebrained-,"

"Ya see, Darc," The girl glared at him through her Barney mouth. "Darcel. We wanted to come with you as far as we could to make sure you were, uh, safe. But you need to really understand the lengths we've gone for you already. Exposing our hiding places, etcetera."

"What are you saying!.?" Darcel shot to her feet and demanded.

"Michael Wazowski, we deserve to know what's going on." Ceila stood as well.

Faced with the two girls over him, the monster had to act fast. "Well, Celia, here's what I had in mind since the moment I concocted this whole thing." Celia squealed in surprise as Mike pulled out two backpacks from under their seats and slapped one on her back. The other one, to Darcel's shock, went over _his_ shoulders. "There's this nice little spot in the human world that I'd like for us to check out, away from the hustle and bustle of all this."

"Mike," Darcel grew worried. "What are you doing?"

A shadow cast over the monster's face, it was as though he had seen too much in his life to explain any of it to her. "I love ya kid," the gondola screeched to a halt and the monster didn't look the least bit surprised, he pushed his love out the open door with her parachute the next moment, "But I love my wife-," Celia yelled 'ex-,' "more." 'Fiancé!' she finished.

The sounds of her voice drained out.

"But-_but!_-,"

"Keep out of trouble," Mike zipped Darcel's Barney mouth closed, "and don't get caught, kid." he gave her shoulder a squeeze before jumping out of the open door to rejoin the girl of his dreams; who apparently knew nothing. Darcel watched with wide brown eyes as he betrayed her. The car shook back and forth, causing her tan hockey stick to slip out again.

…

Sully looked up from his bowl of gruel - not quite grueling enough that day - and listened to the intruder alarm that reverberated throughout the entire Reformatory. Sighing, he put the bowl down and pushed his underweight self up from off the wall. Though the ceiling barely grazed his forehead, Sully had found that over time the space of his ceil had grown more spacious. From his window he could see the potential gondola being indicated by a group of Randall's guard, they hopped from car to car in order to zero in on their target.

"Huh…" the monster said, getting a strange feeling.

…

Darcel braced herself against the inside of the car door and felt around her flat chest for the piece of wood that had belonged to her father to no avail. Mike had took it. She felt tears rush to her eyes at the sounds of the gondola cars being pattered across when she noticed the ice skate that was taped across the end of her stick. The girl picked the stick up in her hands and gripped the wood. Looking down at a particular barred window, an interest piqued inside of her. As the sounds drew nearer she decided what to do with it.

Grumbles and curse words came as the car was surrounded. Darcel, shaking but with a determined look, stood up on her toes and raised the large hockey stick out the top of the car. The monsters made confused noises as the stick reached it's high point before swiping down like an ax ready to take a head off. With one cable precisely cut, Darcel went down.

Her scream, permeating the thick but gently falling spray of snow, was the only way the girl knew she was still alive as she yanked the stick in just before she was thrown against the car's back wall. The skateboarding helmet she wore kept her head from injury but she found that she was lurching to the side. Darcel tried vaguely to grab something but failed.

Everything around her went black.

…

A scream echoed through the halls and corridors.

There was a strange familiarity Sully felt but he was truly taken aback when the red lights from above the prisoners' ceils made their blaring noise to let all the occupants out. But this wasn't normal. The mystery child's scream was so loud that the monster began to hear them shatter. The former call lights used on Monsters Inc doors were being destroyed and in the process - Sully realized - the remaining parts of the doors would be extinct. With the them gone there would be no hope for the world; or ever proving to anyone it had existed.

"No," Sully whispered.

"Ah!" The scream seemed to gather and direct itself right outside his window.

A shadow in the fading blizzard of late morning frightened Sully to act and to act fast. He stumbled back and threw himself out of the way, tripping over his own two feet to try and keep out of the way as a runaway gondola car rammed right into his window. It rocked his ceil and made him fall on his shaggy bottom. From the rising cement dust, the monster saw that the front of the car was cracked in the center where it had hit the wall. Sully gathered himself, took a breath and went over to investigate. The outside was in utter disarray and panic as he slipped his chipping yellow claws into the metal crack of the car and ripped it furiously apart along the fold. Sully's anger was really just starting to flare as he stepped inside. The monster would have torn everything to shreds had he not seen a purple lizard monster passed out on the floor — but this was strange, no normal monsters had zippers.

'Wait.' He thought. 'Zipper?'

Sully gently fingered the chin of the monster up and looked down at it's face.

To be continued…

**A/N:** Yeah, it'll get kind of sad from here.

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	10. Breaking down and breaking out

**I.**

Her vision was hazy, but Darcel could clearly make out someone standing over her with a peculiar fascination. The previous events of yesterday and her long night came back to her memory one-by-one. She tried to stir but the person looking down at her froze her from moving too fast. There was something about this broad-shouldered hulking mass that left her without the will to move or speak. It wasn't until she was spoken to did she talk out.

"Boo?"

"Who are you?"

The mass shifted from one foot to the other.

"Don't you remember me?"

"Kenny?"

There was an awkward moment as the shadow over the mass's face dissolved.

A pair of lonesome blue eyes peered over her. "No."

Darcel sighed and looked down at the ridiculous suit she wore.

"I don't remember anything…"

Her solitary observer curled his pointed fingers under her chin like before and coaxed her to look up. A warm smile had spread across his large face. Darcel tried to lift her arm to reach out to him but the commotion and her slipping back into unconsciousness stopped the girl. She felt the stranger's incredibly large arms take her up and hold her close to him.

"I'll keep you safe." He promised.

**II.**

"Michael, I can't believe you pulled such a stunt!"

The two were making their way towards the small, snow-wrapped borough where Mike had hidden Boo's door so that he and Celia could have somewhere to go after the girl had been sent on her way. Now the monster looked back to see that his put out lover stood in the center of the snow in refusal to go with him. Her arms were crossed and her bare locks were shaking from their tails to their noses. Mike scoffed and stomped back over to Celia.

"Sweetheart, if we're going to make our get-on-with-our-lives reservations, than-,"

"What about Sully?"

"What about him? Boo's got it under control."

"She's a twelve-year-old girl, Mikey. Not a warrioress."

"Thirteen, but whose countin'? Now come on, we've only got until tomorrow to leave."

The monster turned his back to resume the twenty yards they had to go.

"The door's not there, Michael."

His green eye encompassed his entire face outside of his socket.

"Celia, that was our only way out of here, our only way to _freedom!_"

"What about Sully's freedom? What about Darcel's safety?"

When Mike turned around the corners of his eye were gathered with tears.

"I wanted to keep you safe, Smoopsy." He admitted. "I couldn't keep Sully from getting arrested, I landed him in jail myself and if he ever saw me again; it was the only way Hun!"

"The door's under Darcel's seat in the gondola car, googly bear. The only way we'll save ourselves is by going back there." Celia wrapped her arms around her ashamed ex-fiancé'.

"How can I show my face? After leaving my pal in the slammer for _ten years_."

"How will _you_ ever look at your face if you don't do the right thing, Michael?"

Her words cut deep.

**III.**

Sully held the girl close to himself and thought quickly on what he was going to do. The purple-blue monster rushed out into the hall and, swinging to a stop, saw that everyone was under attack — alligators from the swamps Randall had frequented during his time in the human world were having their opportunity to devour the escapees. Sully thrust his fingers inside of his mouth and gave a blow, the whistle stopped everyone in their tracks.

"Everyone whose _not _planning on swearing their allegiance to Randall, follow me."

All monster heads lifted up at the implication and swarmed down the hall to Sully's ceil.

The monster took in the damage to his now half-there room and placed his foot on the side of the car that was the least smashed in. Counting down from three, he forced it back out of the wall and caught a hold of it with one hand. Boo settled comfortably in his other arm. Sully slowly peered out into the dissolving snowfall and saw that there was no one on the grounds outside of the prison. This was very strange, where could the guards possibly be?

As if on cue, the cement-blocked floor beneath the monsters feet began to vibrate.

"All right, Randall!" one of the monsters off to his left shouted. "I proclaim my servitude!"

Sully thwacked his tail resting beside Earnest on the rumbling floor.

"Not now, Ernie."

The tentacle-d monster shivered. "Sorry… just practicing."

"All right, listen, _no one _is proclaiming anything to that slave driver except their freedom," he told them and then to his frightened friend. "Okay?" Sully directed his gaze on everyone huddled behind him — they nodded their loyalties. "Now everyone grab onto one another and hold on tight." At least a dozen arms were went around someone's limb causing him to smile. "All right!" Sully grinned their way. "Let's get the heck of here... Earnest, grab hold."

He did as he was told and wrapped around Sully's leg.

"Ready yourselves… one, two…"

The floor now quaked devastatingly with the thundering feet of Randall's guard.

Strangely enough the gators waited by for their next commands.

"Jump!"

Like a Newton ball, an enormous mass consisting of nearly all Monstropolis's monsters and the former workers of Monster's Inc dangled from the gondola cable one hundred feet in the air. When their confusion over what to do next somehow assembled into one whole concentrated effort, the monsters teamed together to throw their great combined weights and leverage themselves to the other end of the gondola structure — and their freedom.

…

Mike and Celia watched — wide-eyed; as what could have been a crane ball advanced on them. The monstress grabbed onto her ex's hand and gave it a squeeze before whispering something into his lack-of-ear. The monster felt his jaw drop at this unexpected news. He jumped up and down as the monster meteor drew closer and noticed someone standing at an alarming height in the distance, powering but not controlling the gondola with muscle.

"Hey, Ted!"

The Godzilla-esque monster turned to him.

"I may not be gettin' hitched, but I'm gonna have the next best thing."

"Michael."

"Kids!"

…

Sully covered Boo with his arms and tried to ignore the crushing pressure of everyone piling on top of each other. There was a disarray of disorientation, moans and groans as everyone tried to find their bearings. The siren that Sully had feared sounded through out the air and caused a blaze of panic to arouse in the menagerie of freed prisoners. But of course Sully took charge of the situation and told them their destination above the noise:

Monstropolis.

"Sully!" A familiar voice called from the ensuing chaos towards the abandoned city.

"Mike?" the monster slowed.

"Run, pal! Free yourself and Boo."

"MIKE!" Sully yelled.

The thrusting bodies finally caught up with him and the monster was propelled forward.

"Let's get you safe," he turned to Boo, still trapped inside her monster costume.

How Sully was ever going to reconnect with this child was even more of a mystery then how she had come to be in his presence again. Boo's small face looked disturbed and empty as she slept. Sully pressed her close to his thin body and didn't look at her again.

Therefore, he didn't see the start of a smile on her faint pink lips.

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	11. Issues of Trust: pt 1 of 3

**I.**

"Have we located the potential rebellion dugout?" The RDA squad leader spoke.

"Affirmative," said his second-in-command.

Though the snowstorm had stopped and all traces of life had vanished from the outside of the Reformatory to the edge of the forest sandwiched between the prison and the gray top mountains, Randall's Detective Agency was scouring the white sea of terrain for traces of the fugitives. It was all coming together; the underground rebels joining up with Monster's Inc. former employees. All RDA had to do now was determine where they would regroup.

The squad leader placed his mouth piece to his walkie-talkie, "All squads and anyone still at the sect, report immediately onsite outside the gondola power station via cell phone text coordinates. Repeat, all RDA members, report immediately to onsite. I will text location."

"Sir?" his second-in-command interrupted him.

"Number 003, text the location immediately."

"Sir, we found articles of interest."

The yellow-suited monster walked over to the borough, "Well, where are the items?"

"No sir, we actually found _articles_."

Various issues of inappropriate magazines surfaced and were placed in 002's hands.

"Uh…" He held them away from his screened face. "Better file these under hazardous."

**II.**

Everyone clamored around the insides of the old Monsters Inc. warehouse, monsters who hadn't seen their friends from the underground greeted and families hugged in celebration of their freedom no matter how short lived it might be. Among them Celia and Mike were carefully picking their way through the throngs of monsters, curious but fearfully discreet.

Monster lore only knew what would happen when they crossed paths with Darcel. Then, in a quiet spot against the far wall of the building, they spied Sully cradling the girl in his arms with an unreadable look on his face. He appeared calm, but this was from a distance away.

"I don't believe it," Mike said with a wide eye.

"Come on, baby." Celia gave his backside a gentle push, "It's time to make things right."

"_Right_…" He lifted a single foot in the air before heading the other way, "Another time."

"Mike?" Sully noticed him.

The monster froze like he had been stuck by lightening.

Celia looked over at Darcel as the girl blinked her eyes open and gradually sat up.

"Sully." Mike turned around and looked at him unsurely.

"Mike!" the larger monster barreled forward and grabbed him in a bear hug.

Everyone watched on.

Darcel shifted her brown-eyed gaze over to meet Celia's who watched with speechlessness as well. Mike was the only one of the two who shared the same attitude as everyone else it appeared, because Sully had yet to stop holding his long lost friend against his gaunt chest.

"Uh, Sully, everyone's watching…"

The surrounding monsters exchanged looks and immediately found other things to do.

"Huh?" He looked around. "Oh, sorry…"

"Well, gotta run!"

"Mike, wait!" Sully reached out for him.

"It's great ta see ya, pal! I missed ya a lot. Got some stuff at my hideaway I gotta get."

"Michael!" Celia gave chase. "Michael Wazowski, you come back here."

…

Sully watched the two leave with a heavy look.

"What do we do now?" Boo asked from behind him.

The monster turned to see that she was looking to him for help — as she had years ago.

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	12. Issues of Trust: pt 2 of 3

**I.**

Darcel sat with her legs drawn in and her head down as the monster sat by her.

It wasn't awkward like with other kids, but it wasn't entirely assuring either.

"Here," He offered her a green apple from her backpack, "Try and eat something."

She looked up at him.

"It's okay," the monster smiled and held up one with a bite out of it. "I tested one."

Crinkling her eyes, Darcel looked down a moment to laugh. "Who are you?" she said.

He turned more serious as he held her eyes. "Sully."

"No," She shook her head, "That's not right. I know you… but I don't know how."

"It's a pretty complicated subject, B-Darcel…"

The girl gave him a look.

When Sully rose to his full height Darcel saw how underfed and weak he was.

"That's not my name. Here," She stood up as well and offered her backpack to him.

He held a hand up. "You're right," the monster didn't accept anything from her.

"You know more then what you're telling me." Darcel walked around to stand before him.

"I do."

"Like Mike did."

Sully turned surprised. "Mike? He didn't tell you everything that happened."

Darcel looked away and rubbed at her eyes.

He placed his hand on her shoulder. "Bah… um, Darcel."

"Boo." She met his eyes determinedly.

The monster nodded. "Yes."

"I… I feel right being with you. But I can't even remember why. Will you help me?"

He smiled at her gently and offered his hand for her to take. "Trust me."

Darcel backed away. She was afraid of being let down again. "No."

When Sully tried to take her chin in his fingers she bobbed to the side to avoid him.

"Please," He said with genuine interest. "I want to help you, but you have to let me."

The temptation was strong. "No," she said firmly. "I can't trust strangers."

There was a hurt that entered his blue eyes that she didn't understand.

"Please show me," Darcel pleaded as he started to walk away.

Sully looked at her calmly. "Trust me."

"_Show _me."

"Boo," He said and walked up to her again.

"That's right!" She replied in excitement. "That word you're calling me, that name, 'Boo'. That's what you're suppose to call me." Darcel choked on her own words. "It is, isn't it?"

"Boo, yes, but I can't help you if you won't let me remind you why you…" Sully paused.

"Why I... what?"

He sighed, the motion almost rattling his rib cage. "Why you loved me."

"I'm just trying to find my dad," the girl told him. "Do you know where he is?"

The monster stepped up to her again. "How about this," he proposed, "Instead of trusting me, what if I trust you?" This time she let him take her chin. "I'll trust you to remember."

Darcel nodded with a smile. "Okay. So…?"

"You show _me _that you remember, Boo." He made no move towards her.

She smiled wider and offered her hand.

Sully placed his arms behind his back and pretended to look away, whistling.

"Sully!"

The two laughed.

Darcel felt something overcome her as he engulfed her small hand trustingly in his big one.

She almost didn't recognize it was happiness.

**II.**

Randall sized up the simpering human in his high-vaulted cement walls.

"All right…" he jumped to his feet and began pacing.

"W-why do you want me here?" Frank — the child's so-called stepfather — asked.

"You're gonna tell me where that little girl and her monster friends are."

"You've got Darcel!.?"

" '_Darcel?_' " Randall gestured sarcastically. "Whatever." He then flung himself in the young man's face. "Where is she now?" he backed away. "You know it's close my two alligator's dinner times." the salamander lizard monster stroked them atop their scaly green heads.

Frank started hyperventilating. "You're going to feed me to your alligators?"

"No, I'm going to invite you as a dinner guest… of course I'm going to feed you to them! Unless of course you want to tell me where your stepdaughter is…" he said tantalizingly.

"I…" the man looked over at Roz and then over at Randall's guard. "I don't know."

"And if you did know?"

He let his head fall so that his brown bangs covered his face. "I still wouldn't tell you."

The monster's foot clamped along Frank's face and shoved him back. "Pathetic."

As he sprawled across the floor Randall was asked by his guard what to do with him.

"By early morning tomorrow we'll have the world's ambassadors and leaders here to see how effective training infants to fuel our power will be. No one will be in question unless that cuddle bear Sullivan shows up to try and convince them _laughter _is the best solution."

"Yeah. But what do you want done with him?" the guard pointed at Frank.

"Hmm… when the first of the moms arrive he will be the first to initiate my plan."

"And if he refuses?" one of his new pair of thugs asked.

Randall waved an arm in the air casually. "Kill him."

**IV.**

Mid-day in Parkers View, New Jersey…

"So it's all agreed," Josh Becker looked around at the kids, teenagers and young adults who surrounded him as the hot sun beat down on their thick white poster board, "We're gonna use the door Darcel told us about in her room to stop these dumb monsters who we're all in agreement exist and stop them from threatening our moms. And, you know, scaring people."

"I still think you're crazy," Angelina told him, tugging at her baseball uniform.

"But we've all had experiences." A nine-year-old boy said.

"I thought it was a nightmare," Another young child pitched in. "Clown monsters?"

"I wasn't laughing." Said a preteen girl. "Where do those monsters get off trying to scare us and then trying to make us younger kids laugh?" An older teenaged boy patted his little sister's arm as he told them that he used to be terrorized instead of treated to comedy bits.

"So that's why we're going," Josh told them, picking his dad's golf club up and whacking it in his hand. "This girl Darcel's really counting on us and we can't let her do this all by herself."

"Yes we can!"

Everyone stared at Angelina.

"Eh… no we can't." She conceded.

To be continued….

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	13. Issues of Trust: pt 3 of 3

**I.**

"So," Randall looked upon the former prisoners, "Where are my moms?"

"They sort of… um, fought us on the way over."

Their lizard leader stood to his full height — tip-toes included; to stare down at them.

"Where are they!.?"

"They're, uh, back in the human world."

Randall reclined back in his 'throne' ."Oh, girls…" he looked down. "Lunchtime."

The last thing the henchman saw were two dark tunnels engulfing them.

**II.**

"I'm not sure I can do this," Darcel said.

"It's okay," Sully comforted her, resting his hand in the middle of her back.

"What if all I remember is the bad parts?" She looked up into his eyes fearfully.

The monster remembered this all too vividly — the fright that would hit Boo's eyes so fast that he could never predict it. Human children were so receptive, even if they did have too much stimuli. But there was something about this girl that expressed something deeper. It wasn't that she was different, but she had a resonance in her that Sully saw was still there.

"Take your time." He laughed a little. "I don't expect you to remember _everything_."

"I don't know…" Darcel looked down at the dirt floor.

A scaled hand found her right shoulder. "We're countin' on you kid." Mark told her.

"You are?"

" 'Course!" He smiled as the rest of Monstropolis and former Monsters Inc. workers all looked upon the girl fondly — or at least without repulsion or fear. "Kid, if it wasn't for you we would have hit our energy crisis. Sure you caused mass panic and fear, but you-,"

"Markus," Sully gave his arm a pat. "She gets it."

Darcel looked between the two monsters.

"Really?"

Her desire for the truth compelled him even more.

"See for yourself," He gently moved her to face the strangers behind them.

"Uh," She lifted her hand and waggled her fingers. "Hello… everyone."

The looks she received were confused and desperate for help.

"I'm not sure what you want me to do." Darcel admitted to her new friend.

"We need you to remember," Sully explained, bending sideways as he spoke, "Darcel, we only got by on the power of laughter for six months before I was jail… imprisoned and all these people weren't far behind me. If you can remember, if you could even just know the name you called me as a two-year-old, then it could help validate to the rest of our world that laughter _is _the solution and Randall was wrong!" He slashed his arm through the air.

Cheers rang out to reinforce this.

"I don't know."

"Try," the monster urged her.

Darcel met his eyes with the same fear as before and he nearly backed out.

"I-,"

"We found the door!" one of the largest monsters in Monstropolis announced.

"Lucky it didn't shatter to pieces again, eh?" Vinny the former restaurant manager said.

"Bada bing," Sully muttered half-heartedly.

Darcel looked up at him a final time at the apparently unfashionable slang term and started up to the door. The plank was just as Sully remembered — white with pink floral trim that decorated the outside middle. The biggest reminder, of course, was the chipped details. In an overwhelmed state, Sully looked down at Boo as she concentrated on the door intently.

Then, with a brave look, the girl started to walk towards it.

"No," He caught her arm.

"Sully?" Mark questioned him.

"Sully, why you do this?" Vinny also made mention.

"There's no guarantee that this girl can help us." The former CEO of Monsters Inc. turned to announce to everyone, "Asking her to do this is the same thing as forcing a scream out of a child, it's only going to go down the path that Randall led us. Is that what you want?"

"Sully," the once proud restaurant owner approached him, "What we do without her?"

"I'll help in any way I can," Boo took the floor, surprising Sully.

"How?"

"You're a kid! What can you possibly do?"

"If Sully could save me once," the girl turned his way, smiling, "He can do it again."

At this, the monster became beguiled... and elated.

… Just after twilight, Monster's Inc…

"So how did she know?" Mike asked as he, Celia and Sully watched Boo sleeping.

"She didn't," his best friend admitted, stroking back Boo's black hair, "She said she felt that what I said made sense and she wanted to help us." he never looked away from her.

"You'd make one heck of a dad, Sully."

"Yeah?" The monster looked up at him and flopped a hand over his head. "And you make one heck of a best friend, Mikey." Mike became frozen under the weight of the huge arm.

"I…" He slowly moved himself from underneath it. "I don't know what to say."

"The truth." his ex said.

"There's nothing _to_ say," Sully praised, "Without you, none of this was possible."

"Oh, Michael's not the _only_-," Celia prodded him in the side, "one who contributed."

A flying ice skate nearly landed straight into Mike's stomach.

"Dah!" He jumped out of the way just in time.

Everyone looked at each other and then at a glaring Darcel.

" 'Mike's not the only one who contributed?' Ain't that the truth."

"Uh-heh," He tapped his stubby fingers together. "Kids."

"Mike…" Sully got to his feet and placed his hands on his sides.

"Yes, Sully?"

"Did you try and send Boo through the wrong door again?"

Mike's answering look suggested no.

"Not exactly," Celia reiterated.

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	14. The reached and the unreachable

**I.**

The monitors some how flickered to life before the thirteen-year-old girl. She raised her head and gave a vague wipe at her eyes as the tears spilled down her cheeks and all the screens she hadn't seen before featured footage of a time before she was even in school.

…

"Sully…"

"I can't believe it."

"It's all my-,"

"I can't believe I trusted you!"

Mike became as still as a statue.

The large monster was panting hard and affectedly. By the time that he had begun to catch his breath he was already continuing down the hallway in a determined stalk. Mike was on the move right after him to try and calm him down. What else was he suppose to do now?

"So, does that mean you wanna be reimbursed for that deposit on our old apartment?"

Sully continued to ignore him as he hunched down the corridor.

"Hey!"

Mike was still ignored.

"LISTEN TO ME!"

Sully stopped — and did as his friend had said.

"I'm not saying I haven't made my fair share of mistakes, but do you ever, and I mean…"

The blue monster looked down at him, saddened.

"Do you think I _ever_ stopped missing my best friend in the whole world?"

Sully took a shuddering breath. "Go find Celia," he turned away. "Boo needs me."

…

Mike hadn't moved a step in the other direction.

"You need me too," the distancing monster heard his small green friend say.

…

"Look at what are on these screens." A deep, gravelly voice said from the shadows.

"What are they?" Darcel asked as she moved towards the paused pictures.

"Just watch."

"Boo!" The doors hinges gave way as Sully burst into the room.

Darcel didn't notice, her eyes were mesmerized by pictures of a large monster's face being multiplied across five times. His blue eyes were fierce and his jaw was wide open in what was a rather exaggerated expression, contorting the rest of himself as the monitors were now put on 'play' again and roaring into a child's face. The angle of the footage quickly turned on the screams of another child — a smaller child. Her black hair was in two tight pigtails and she was in a hokey-looking monster suit. But the point being made was clear.

"Do you see now?" the man with the strange voice turned to Sully. "See what you did to upset not only this child, but to _destroy _my factory! You didn't solve the energy crisis; you just prolonged the inevitable. Screaming is old-fashioned and tomorrow, no one will buy in and believe your little laughter spiel. It's over, you big galoot. This girl does not believe-,"

"I don't believe you!" The girl whirled on the pair.

Waternoose and Sullivan turned to her. Darcel's eyes, however, weren't on her friend.

"I want the truth," She told him when she did look his way, "And I want it now."

"The truth… the truth is that your father never came here, B-Darcel. There was never any monster hunters or special reasons you were meant to be here. It was only my selfishness."

"You mean, you don't even know who he is?"

Sully dropped his head. "No."

"Well, James, is there anything else you have to say?"

When he moved his blue eyes up his former boss was smiling at him cruelly.

"No."

This time it was Darcel speaking.

The two turned to her a final time.

"But maybe he'll want to explain _this_."

A picture with the name Boo signed in the corner was held up before them. The two characters were of a purple-patched blue creature and a little girl in a pink outfit. They stood in the center of the white square, holding hands and smiling out at the monsters.

"Boo… h-how do you remember?"

She was smiling with tears in her eyes when she lowered the picture down.

"My head," Darcel pointed at the temple of her brain, "doesn't know you."

Sully blinked back his own tears.

"But my heart-" her voice caught as she laid her hand across chest, "remembers you."

"Boo." He laughed in disbelief.

"Kitty." Boo laughed as well as she ran into his hairy, gangly arms.

While footage of a questioning — and better fed — Sully played on the monitors the two embraced one another: "You mean," His voice echoed. "I can't see her anymore?" Neither little girl or monster paid attention to their past selves as they held each other exuberantly.

"H-," the thin crabbed monster dressed in rags mumbled in shock, "How can-?"

"I may be young," Boo turned to him. "But I'm not ignorant."

"Humph," Sully loosened his hold on the girl and placed his hand on his side.

"What?" She giggled.

"Maybe my old boss was right… maybe kids can't get scared anymore."

"And that's a _good_ thing?" Waternoose exploded, raising up on his crooked hunches.

"No," Sully took the piece of metal he had once used to secure the swinging doors with.

"Then what!.?"

"It means they're not ignorant." He said as he twisted the metal to bind Waternoose.

"Sully?" Darcel said.

"What do you say we go meet the rest of the monster world?" He said as he bent down.

She considered this a moment before climbing up on his back. "Sounds good to me."

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	15. Dumbest of the dummies

**I.**

Mike and Celia walked down the deserted halls of Monsters Inc, there were no lights on and papers were scattered everywhere. As they came upon the former simulation room; a room that had been closed after Waternoose had been imprisoned and later released after Randall had terrorized the city — and for good reason, they saw a figure exiting out of it.

Sully circled around and was coming at them full speed despite his thin frame.

"I, uh…" Mike stammered.

"Go on," Celia nudged him, "The worst he can do is not forgive you."

"No, the worst he can do is_ to kill me!_"

As the mass of blue fur came shuttling down the hallway, the Cyclops got into position.

"Look, Sully, about this whole parachuting out of a gondola car and leaving Boo, I-,"

He and Celia was snatched up and thrown upon the monster's crest-lined back.

"No time, Mikey, we need to get back to the Reformatory and stop the voting process."

"But about Boo?"

"What about her?"

The peeved-looking, suit free girl was sitting in between them.

"Eh, heh heh, Boo, I uh…"

"Hold on guys," Sully said as he entered the old scare floor.

"We are, pal."

"No, I mean…" He ducked back into the shadowed hallway. "Don't move."

They were all yanked back with him.

The four saw through the glass pane windows of the hallway — after Sully rubbed some of the dust off — that all of the refugees were being bind together with different materials lying around the factory. Flabbergasted, Celia, Darcel, Mike and Sully slid out of view to the bottom half of the wall. In less then twenty four hours Randall had secured the premises.

"What'd we do now?" the medusa-haired monster asked.

"Scream."

They all looked at Mike for the sheer irony.

"No, that's not a bad idea." Darcel said, she turned to Sully with a glow in her eyes and voice, "Sully, do you remember the dummy that was simulated in that room we were in?"

"I'd…" He looked down at his inward bent knees, "I'd rather not think about it."

"Sully," She placed her hand on his arm, "If we're going to save your friends, if you want _me _to save your world," she turned to the others, "Then you have to tell me everything."

"Boo-,"

"Please, Kitty."

He didn't answer.

"Darcel is right."

The three turned to Mike.

"We started this thing and we need to see this thing THROUGH THE-,"

"Hey, I think I heard something over here!"

One tentacle and two hands clamped over his mouth.

"What was your idea, sweetie?"

Darcel grinned at Celia. "Do you guys think that Randall's goons are afraid of kids still?"

"Well, if Randall never told them that kids weren't toxic," Mike rationalized.

"And if they believe that, than their bound not to want to make contact with them."

The most uncertain of the four looked up at Celia, coming around.

"Exactly," Darcel nodded certainly. "Now, do you guys have anymore simulation dolls?"

"Oh yeah," Sully quickened to say, "They're all up in storage inside the factory's at… tic."

"Pretty smart, huh?" She asked.

Her good mood evaporated at Celia and Mike looking at each other in realization.

"What?" Darcel asked Sully in concern.

"Nothing, it's just…"

"What?"

"Who told you that monsters were afraid of children?"

"Nobody. I just… knew."

For the first time in nine years, the lumbering monster smiled with actual hope.

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	16. Final verdict: pt 1 of 2

**I.**

"I'm not quite sure I have the plan all worked out in my head," Angelina said. She moved the baseball bat uncomfortably under her arm as the children walked across the snowfield.

"We wait until we see the first monster," Josh explained as he adjusted his helmet.

"Then we whack'im dead!" Seven-year-old Pete swung his hockey stick up in the air.

"Didn't you say you had to ask your dad if you could have that hockey stick?"

"Yup."

"Did he say yes?"

"Nope."

Angelina and Josh looked at one another at the bundled up kid.

"He didn't say I could wrap the old chain from his saw around the stick either."

Pete grinned as he pulled out the length of metal and coiled it around the stick's center.

"I'm pretty sure you're not suppose to do that." The girl remarked.

"All right!" Josh turned around to face the other winter cloth-clad kids. "Hockey sticks?"

"HERE!" The sticks went up at once on his left side.

"Baseball bats?"

"HERE!" The pieces of wood and metal pumped up — most surprisingly led by Angelina.

"And skate boarders?" Josh turned to look at his own kind.

Everyone held their long boards up. He took a breath and did the same.

"All right then," the teenaged boy looked down a snowy slope to the base of a stationary gondola. Black dots were congregating out in the distance. "Now!" he held his board up.

"YEAH!"

The children who had once been invaded by the monsters of this world charged forth.

…

Randall looked down at his watch. The small scream reserves he had kept only for himself and the Reformatory over the years was starting to drain. Truth be told, the last fuel cells were barely enough to even operate this tiny clock. He needed to meet with the rest of the leaders in the monster world if he was going to make it clear that his way was for the best.

"Uh, Randall." Fungus said.

"Not now," the salamander monster fumed, "We're burning morning light."

"No," He gulped look. "Look."

While in the distance the world's leaders were skiing towards them in the thick snow; they having left their cars at a less snowed out area — what looked to be a mass advancement of children were running towards them from the distance at a forty degree angle from the arriving monster leaders. But that was the least of their worries — Sullivan was nearing.

…

From atop a big monster toboggan, Darcel, Mike and Celia rode down to where the leaders from all around the world would decide whether Randall's idea was a good one; what was more terrifying was the idea that they would agree to such a heinous plan without having knowledge of another source of power — a much friendlier, safer source that would involve only laughter. Sully wasn't concerned that he was being used as a mode of transportation.

"I've been put away a long time!" He hollered up to them, smiling broadly, "Hang on!"

"Uh, Sully…" Mike started to protest.

"Whoo!" His friend whooped.

"Whoa!" Darcel exclaimed, holding onto his left arm as they made a sharp left turn.

"This is…" Celia laughed weakly and tried to grab onto her hair, "very exhilarating!"

"Heh, yeah!" Mike agreed, starting to enjoy himself.

The four had to speak in loud voices to communicate.

"This isn't so… BAAAAAAD!"

A drift in the snow caused them to go up in the air and tumble across the white terrain.

"Darcy," Sully panicked and rushed over to where she lay with her face in the snow.

"Uh…" She moaned as he picked her up in his arms. "Sully?"

His blue eyes were wide with alarm.

"Let's not do that again," she smiled.

He took a moment to relax and smiled as well.

A heavy mist rolled across the snow and they had to squint hard to see that children were running towards them with raised weapons from the distance. Darcel scampered out of his arms. "It's okay!" She called out in reassurance. "Stop the other monsters, Kitty, hurry up."

Before he could react further, Sully turned to see that all the refugees from Monsters Inc. were coming on fast from the other side. He put his hands up and called for them to stop. They, however, had weapons in hand. Sully realized too late that they believed that they were about to do battle with the ex-prisoners who had locked them away nine years ago.

…

Darcel raised her arms up and waved frantically, "Guys, stop!"

"Please!" She heard Sully cry out from behind her. "It's not what you think. STOP!"

But even the familiar rumble of his roar wasn't enough to halt the ensuing battle.

The girl looked back at her monster friend, he came jogging back up towards her.

There was nothing more to say as they embraced one another in preparation to die.

…

Mike and Celia watched on in horror from mid-way up the snowy slope.

"They're down there," he said.

"Oh, Monster." She gasped.

With sad acceptance, the Cyclops took his ex's hand.

"If we get out of this alive…"

"Than I'll accept your hand in marriage till the end of the monster world."

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	17. Final verdict: pt 2 of 2

**I.**

Sully and Darcel held each other close as the impending onslaught drew nearer.

"Wait," she said.

The monster lost his hold on her for just a split second; she took that moment to move.

"Darcel!"

"Wait!" the girl waved her arms around wildly.

Josh, geared up in his skateboard gear and leading the other children, paused.

Sully, quickly decided, turned around and did the same with his former inmates.

When the two sides saw one another they came to an immediate stop.

…

Randall watched between the two sides with an anxious look. The leaders stood with wide eyes at the humans that were looking at them. But he saw to his worst fears — and most unsettling nightmares — that flicks of recognition were going through out the monsters and the humans. What was worst, Darcel and Sully seemed to have things under control.

…

"Isn't this nice," Roz said as she slugged forward in her old CDA uniform across the snow.

"Roz?"

Sully found that Mike and Celia had joined them.

"Ma'am," Darcel walked up to her. "I'm sorry, I just want to protect-,"

She raised a tentacle. "Sullivan," the woman turned to the hairy monster.

"I know." He nodded.

"Sully," Darcel took his arms, "Will I ever see you again?"

There was nothing he could vocalize as he stroked her loose black hair back.

"Sully?"

"No, Boo."

"Kitty?" She held on to him tighter.

Sully felt his eyes sting. "Boo…"

"I have to go," Darcel said. Then, in front of everyone, the girl went into his closing arms.

"I'm sorry, Boo."

She sucked in a trembling breath. "I love you."

"Well," Mike came up and placed his hand on her shoulder. "We love you too, Boo."

Sully and Darcel looked at him, looked at each other with a smile and then took Mike and Celia in for a hug. The Cyclops predictably tried to squirm away. Roz came up to Darcel, scruntized her once and asked what she wanted to do. At that, the girl said to go home.

"Very good," the monster said and snapped off her number one vest.

"Whoa," Darcel spoke as she was handed it, trying the yellow material on.

Seeing how amazed she was — and turning to see that the other kids who had once been invaded by Monstropolis's monsters were clamoring excitedly about obtaining their own vests from the old CDA member — the monster managed to smile. Darcel gave her one in return and went over to hug Celia once more, give Mike a forehead kiss and stop at Sully.

…

"This is it," Boo said to Kitty.

"You be a good girl." He reached out and touched her cheek.

The leaders of the monster world looked at one another, seemed impressed by the whole outcome, and turned to leave on their skis. Josh and Angelina waited for Boo as Mike and Celia helped gather her supplies up. Surprisingly, her step dad was also waiting nearby and as twitchy as he was he was eager to hug Boo and tell her how much she had been missed.

"It's okay, Frank." She took his hand as he grinned and babbled nervously.

…

"Boo."

Darcel turned around from watching the children filing back home one at time.

"Good-bye, Kitty." She waved. Tears filled her brown eyes as white light filled her world.

The girl would never know that the last door to her world would be destroyed soon after.

To be continued…

~ Lavenderpaw ~


	18. The end of sorts

**I.**

"Darcel," Danita smiled wide as her daughter came to hug her with pink tulips in hand.

"Hi, Mom!" She went into her mother's encircling embrace.

"Franklin," the woman stared at her husband. "Where have the two of you been?"

They looked at one another.

"Well…" he started.

"We were…" Darcel supplied a middle part.

"Helping us out with our baseball practice," Angelina said suddenly as she stepped into the room and linked arms with a perplexed Darcel, "It ran late into the morning, I'm very sorry."

"… And Frank, were you-?"

"He was in the bleachers with me." Josh appeared on Darcel's other side.

"I should have called," the twenty-four-year-old rubbed the back of his neck.

"Well," Danita sighed, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek, "As long as everyone's safe."

"Thank you," Darcel mouthed to her new friends. They slipped her two thumbs up.

"Hi," A nurse came in wheeling a clear basin with a blue swaddled form inside.

"It's…"

"You're new brother," Danita smiled at Darcel, taking the newborn in her arms.

"What's his name?" Angelina asked and gave Darcel the first nice look she had ever given.

"I'm not sure yet," the woman stroked a patch of black hair out of the boy's eyes.

"How about Kit?" Frank suggested, hugging Darcel close to him as he stood back.

" 'Kit?' "

Her stepfather smiled at her.

"Kit… that's a wonderful name!" Danita agreed.

"Kit." Darcel nodded and shared in the joy of her new brother's birth with her family.

**II.**

"That's a good lookin' kid, Mikey, but what're you going to name him?"

Mike pondered a moment as Celia cradled a green, multi-eyed monster close to her.

"How about Darnell?" He prodded Sully in the side with his elbow.

Sully and Celia shared a look.

"Uh, how about Mike Jr.?" the large furry monster said.

"Or," the Cyclops shrugged, "That works too." he slapped Sully's arm, "Uncle Sully."

The two best friends gave each other a one-armed hug and watched as Mike Jr. fell asleep.

The End.

~ Lavenderpaw ~


End file.
